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Friday, December 7th, 2007

DeVotchKa: A Mad and Faithful Telling

"This Denver-based group is one of independent pop's most entertaining amalgams. Fronted by the glamorously dissolute spaghetti tenor Nick Urata, DeVotchKa is a fantasy band for drunken weddings and noirish debauchery" - Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times

"When it comes to gypsy stereotypes, stealing local women is near the top of the list, and if one band on the scene has the power to lure impressionable virgins, its Devotchka" - Spin magazine

DeVotchkA gets pegged with all kinds of farfetched descriptions - but despite all their trappings, which include admittedly exotic elements, Nick Urata and company concoct impeccable pop songs, the kind that fuse memory and memorability with swaying darkness and glittering soul."
- The Onion

For the past decade DeVotchKA have been on a trailblazing singular career path waiting for the world to catch up to them. They have taken on theatres, festivals, and burlesque clubs alike, playing in the middle of the audience and transporting everyone to a more glamorous and dangerous place with a pioneering sound that renders geographic borders and time meaningless. Sousaphones, upright bass, tuba, bouzouki, theremins, mariachi horns, accordions, violins and a myriad of instruments can be found on all of the band's uncategorizable albums that meld indie rock with Eastern European and Mexican folk influences. In 2007, the world finally began catching up to DeVotchKa when the band's score for Little Miss Sunshine was nominated for a GRAMMY.

The band's first album of all new material since 2004's How it ends is everything a DeVotchKa record should be, an inimitable thrill full of adventurous melodies and heartbreaking beauty certain to bewitch everyone that hears it. "Basso Profundo" starts things off with its unpredictable tempo changes that foreshadow the adventure to come. "Comrade Z"s escalating violin and horn arrangements are certain to make your heart beat faster and defy you to stay still. "Transliterator" may be the indie rock song of 2008 with its heart-wrenching vocal melody and machine gun beat. The accordion and solemn strings of "Undone" will break hearts all around the globe.

DeVotchKa had set the bar high but they've managed to make the best album of their career. All of the disparate elements that make up this singular band benefit from the improved production. From beginning to end, the album manages to take you to a place infinitely more exciting and appealing than the every day, a place only DeVotchKa could have imagined.